Venture

“ So he grows in mental power and the consciousness of it. He commands an increasing influence among business men, and learns how to expend the force that urges him on to larger and better ventures in trade. ”

“ He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me, or too far below me; ”

“ They encourage the investment of capital in manufacturing enterprises by rash and unskilled speculators, to be followed by disaster to the adventurers and their employees, and a plethora of commodities which deranges the operations of skilled and prudent enterprise. ”

“ My real work, however, is experimenting, and when I am able to turn out a machine that satisfies me, my next business will be to form a company, for one can’t do anything in this trade without capital. ”

“ Hold the vision of yourself in the right business, with the purpose to get into it, and the faith that you will get into it, and are getting into it; but ACT in your present business. Use your present business as the means of getting a better one, and use your present environment as the means of getting into a better one. Your vision of the right business, if held with faith and purpose, will cause the Supreme to move the right business toward you; and your action, if performed in the Certain Way, will cause you to move toward the business. ”

“ But the business man, or entrepreneur, in our day is the director and initiator of industry. He employs labor, borrows capital, sets the wheels of industry in motion; it is his expectations and fears and hopes which determine primarily whether the investment of capital shall take place in large or small amount, and whether the machinery of production shall move smoothly and effectively, or slowly, hesitatingly, inefficiently. ”

“ For you, O broker! there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. ”

“ True enterprise is constantly on the alert to discover some new want of society, some fertile source of profit or honor, some unexplored field of business, and is ready to supply the one or to take advantage of the other. ”

“ But what is wanted is some man who thoroughly understands the business, who would give to it his undivided attention, and who should have sufficient capital to carry it on properly. In the hands of such a man, I have myself no doubt of its success. ”

“ What government failed to effect, however, with all its patronage and all its agents, was at length brought about by the enterprise and perseverance of a single merchant, one of its adopted citizens; and this brings us to speak of the individual whose enterprise is the especial subject of the following pages; a man whose name and character are worthy of being enrolled in the history of commerce, as illustrating its noblest aims and soundest maxims. ”

“ The producers of these things—the physician, the trainer, the money-maker—each in turn contends that his art produces the greatest good. Surely, says the physician, health is the greatest good; there is more good in my art, says the trainer, for my business is to make men beautiful and strong in body; and consider, says the money-maker, whether any one can produce a greater good than wealth. ”

“ But it was traditionalistic business, if one considers the spirit which animated the entrepreneur: the traditional manner of life, the traditional rate of profit, the traditional amount of work, the traditional manner of regulating the relationships with labour, and the essentially traditional circle of customers and the manner of attracting new ones. All these dominated the conduct of the business, were at the basis, one may say, of the ethos of this group of business men. ”

“ Consider the opportunities of a merchant to observe character, to study times, and nations; to procure the arts, books, and society best for the mind; to trace even the changes in the market to causes that connect themselves with the world’s want or welfare,—then say, who is not slothful in business? ”

“ Let anyone try to get a railroad built, or to start a factory and win reputation for its products, or to start a school and win a reputation for it, or to found a newspaper and make it a success, or to start any other enterprise, and he will find what obstacles must be overcome, what risks must be taken, what perseverance and courage are required, what foresight and sagacity are necessary. ”

“ Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs. ”

“ What I purpose doing is to carry out my business schemes by such methods as will enable those who work with me and for me to earn their own betterments in life, and then to enlighten and guide them in the spending and investment of their earnings. ”

“ I mean to get into the promotion of big things—big corporation business. A fellow that finances street railways and industrial plants, controls banks and makes towns grow—a builder; that’s what I mean to be. ”

“ His success is their success, and without favorable results neither he, nor they, can prosper.
Teach ’em, Red—show ’em their responsibility! Fire their minds and hearts with the fact that they’re not working for the company—bless your heart, Boy, they are the company to all intent and purpose on their territory, and either their lackadaisical or their aggressive, businesslike demeanor and actions will be interpreted by their trade exactly as they appear and the company will be so reflected. ”

“ Enterprises, namely, which are carried on by private entrepreneurs by utilizing capital (money or goods with a money value) to make a profit, purchasing the means of production and selling the product, i.e. undoubted capitalistic enterprises, may at the same time have a traditionalistic character. ”

“ If there are qualities in literature which are above price, these are also to be found in the world of manufacture and finance in that huge pyramid of loyalty which is modern industry, and that vast network of fidelity which is modern commerce. ”

“ It opens up quite a new field of enterprise; and new fields, I need hardly tell you, have a great charm for a man in my position. The ordinary routine of commerce does not interest me very much; but something new is very attractive. ”

“ He may be but a name to the men—a name on a signboard. But there is the business—it is more than a name. It produces the living—and a living is a pretty tangible thing. The business is a reality. It does things. ”

“ For instance, you open a shop—not for the purpose of doing business, but for doing some unfortunate flat, in the very spirit of a "Good-will;" so that when your business is done, your client may find his business done too, and when you have taken yourself off, he may find himself taken in. ”

“ My friend the business man tells me that for success in business one requires four things: a large capital, industry, insight, and caution—and then it's a toss-up. I am fain to believe this whole system of modern commerce was devised to please the amateurs of the aleatory. ”

“ Besides the above arrangements you can go into partnership with some moneyed man, or interest, and finally a good plan, where a large amount of capital is required to build a plant and start a business, is to form a company, or corporation as it is called. ”

“ And the more he enjoyed his business in his own particular way—that of building a house for a man in less time than he said he would, and for less money, not infrequently sending him a check at the end of it—the more his business grew. ”

“ A number of craftsmen should band together, each should contribute his little capital, and a place of business would be selected. The work would be distributed according to the various capacities of the men, and they would choose one from their midst who would superintend the whole. ”

“ Great business enterprises allow their success to the manufacture or sale of some simple invention or compound—usually the result of an experiment at home. With this latest book of practical formulas the boy of to-day has a far better opportunity than his father—and the mother and sisters can develop an industry of their own that will produce a comfortable income. ”

“ In our time we have organized that scattered and wandering force and set it to work, and backed the business with capital, and concentrated it in few and competent hands, and the results are as we see. ”

“ In current economic theory the business man is spoken of under the name of "entrepreneur" or "undertaker," and his function is held to be the coordinating of industrial processes with a view to economics of production and heightened serviceability. ”

“ In this manner you may not only make a profitable investment, but you are given an opportunity to become yourselves employers of labor and to share in the profits of the great enterprise which you have helped to build up. ”

“ So plausible was everything made to appear, that men of commercially acquired fortune, of the greatest experience, and of long-tried judgment, invested their capital in the fullest confidence of success. ”

“ I need not say anything more about the Temple; we shall accomplish that work as expeditiously as we can. I might advance many profitable ideas pertaining to business, if the brethren who are men of business, and understand what is needed in our case, would listen, and profit by them. ”

“ There are many items of great volume and consequence that do not fall within the immediate score of these business principles. The housewife's work, e.g., as well as some appreciable portion of the work on farms and in some handicrafts, can scarcely be classed as business enterprise. ”

“ And even in the earlier days of the doctrines, when the aim was to dispose of the undertaker's work under the theoretical head of Production, the business side of his work persistently obtruded itself for discussion in the books and chapters given to Distribution and Exchange. The course taken by the later theoretical discussion of the entrepreneur, leaves no question but that the characteristic fact about his work is that he is a business man, occupied with pecuniary affairs. ”

“ The upshot was, that we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted capital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner. ”

“ In a few years he is the foreman, or an inventor, or a partner, with independent capital of his own. Again, there is a blind way of doing skilled work, or of merely doing it without noticing where it is most needed, or how the market is going for this special kind of work. ”

“ The individual lawyer or carpenter perishes, but the profession or the trade survives, like a Platonic idea. In a stationary economic condition of a people, we might suppose that every trade and profession is an immortal, unchanging corporation. ”

“ Her business had grown into an important one through the best and simplest agency, by means of good work and punctuality and the other virtues that specially belong to honest trade, and rarely fail of success in the long run. ”

“ The growth of commerce converted them into producers. The love of roving, the restless energy, the dislike of restraint, the thirst for independence, and a sort of morbid passion for the wild solitudes of nature, were alike gratified in their selection of employment. ”

“ The modern business man, entrepreneur or manager, and all those assisting him in the discharge of his duties, perform functions in two directions: first, in the direction of the market in the establishment of price, in the selling of his goods, and in attending to all matters which flow therefrom, and secondly toward the production plant itself ”

“ I soon became expert at the business, and, in obedience to my father’s injunctions, drove it on with spirit while I was at it. The making of money I found far more profitable than the making of purses. ”

“ A further feature of that precapitalistic business situation is that business, whether handicraft or trade, was customarily managed with a view to earning a livelihood rather than with a view to profits on investment. ”

“ The industry which so comes into the foreground and so affects the scheme of institutions is peculiar in that its [Pg 50] most obvious and characteristic trait is the workmanlike initiative and efficiency of the individual handicraftsman and the individual enterprise of the petty trader. ”

“ The commonplace or old-fashioned business enterprise, the competitive system of investment in industrial business simply, commonly rests pretty directly on the due sequence of the industrial processes in which the investments of such enterprise are placed. Such enterprise, as conceived by the current theories of capital, does business at first hand in the industrial efficiency of the community, which is conditioned by the time relation of the causal sequence, and which is, indeed, in great measure a function of the time consumed in the technological processes. ”

“ The husbandman tills his field, and six classes eat of its fruits. The artisan plies his craft, and six classes profit by his skill. The trader barters his goods, and six classes are enriched by the exchange. ”